Software Defined Data Center

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This article is the fifth in an editorial series that explores the benefits of leveraging HPC virtualization and public or private clouds. This week we look how virtualization enables IT as a service (ITaaS) and the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC).

Managing, provisioning and monitoring very high scale workloads and large data sets has been a staple of HPC environments for some time.  Now, with the advent of Big Data and the advanced computational capabilities and affordability of today’s hardware and software, enterprise data centers are also dealing with the problems and opportunities that this deluge of data brings with it.

By leveraging the benefits of virtualization and the power of private, public and hybrid clouds, IT departments in both the enterprise and HPC are transforming themselves into providers of access to IT as a service (ITaaS)

Software Defined Data Center v2

The software defined data center is the underlying data center architecture that allows most of an IT’s compute, storage, networking, security and availability infrastructure to be abstracted and defined in software and to function as enterprise-wide resources.  In an SDDC, policy-driven automation supports the provisioning and ongoing management of compute, storage and network services. This approach enables ITaaS to be delivered in a virtualized environment that allows IT to deploy and deliver applications with greater agility, speed and quality of service.

Next week’s article will look at Virtualization in the Clouds. If you prefer the complete insideHPC Guide to Virtualization, the Cloud and HPC is available for download in PDF from the insideHPC White Paper Library, courtesy of VMware.